Scope and Content Note for Additions to the Collection
Series 4, the Addition to the Arthur Papers, spans the period 1846-1960 and is arranged in four subseries: Correspondence, Financial Papers, Scrapbooks, and Miscellany.
The largest portion of Series 4 appears to be part of the correspondence file of the New York Republican State Committee dating from May to November 1880, a period in which Arthur served as committee chairman, and beginning in June, as vice-presidential candidate. There are letters and telegrams to Arthur and other members of the committee as well as draft replies from Arthur, apparently in the handwriting of his secretary, James C. Reed.
Other correspondence includes letters from Arthur to his son, Chester Alan Arthur (1864-1937); letters from Robert Graham Dun, George Bliss, and Roscoe Conkling to Arthur; and letters of resignation submitted by members of James A. Garfield's cabinet after his assassination in 1881.
Also in Series 4 are an account book for the Arthur’s presidential years kept by the steward of the Executive Mansion, a scrapbook on Arthur's service as collector of customs for the Port of New York (1871-1877), and correspondence between Owen A. Sheffield and E. T. I. Thygeson in 1960 that illuminates Arthur's relationship with his close friend Robert Graham Dun and discusses the disposition of Arthur's personal papers.
Series 5, Addition II, was donated by Ron Michie of Scotland, U.K. in 2015. It is not part of the microfilm edition of the papers. This addition consists of a single item: a letter written by President Arthur in 1882 to restauranteur, John Sutherland, thanking him for the "excellent haunch of Caribou." Sutherland, originally from Scotland, operated a popular eating house in New York City that had been patronized by Arthur.